Here comes a biopic of sorts that
goes wrong with the cast. When you choose a subject that is too close in time
its credibility takes a beating. More so in times when honesty suffers a huge
premium. You get a lurking feel that Apoorva Lakhia is almost on the sly packaging
Haseena to us as the woman more wronged than wrong. This is well within his
artistic rights. However, he fails to come out in the open and there lies the
catch.
The story deals with Haseena Parkar (Shradha Kapoor – in arguably the most
laboured performance of recent times) who is first a witness to the growth of
her brother – who to the uninitiated is the sibling of Dawood Ibrahim and then
a heir to his (under) world in India even as he is still perceived as the most
wanted person in India.
The film short for just two hours deals were superficially with how the Bad Bro
(Sidhanth Kapoor) takes to crime and is hounded by the system. The script
half-heartedly pushes the theory that society creates crime and the criminal
does commits it. The film maker obviously lacks the wherewithal to go the whole
hog. Even as he is forced to leave the country, she slowly becomes the
alternate seat of power. Charged of being the heir to his ill -gotten wealth in
court scenes that would make BR Chopra shudder (leave alone Govind Nihlani),
she recalls incidents of her life that force the audience to nearly empathise
with her. The film maker fails to make the anti-hero of her. He is busy
garnering sympathy for her and in the process, makes her fleshless Don with no
punch or purpose in her character. You end up being more bored than
appreciative or critical of the central character. Yes, you discern a certain
romanticising of the D gang and leave without being sure where Haseena is in
all this. Shradha, a good artist fails to translate the tough woman and leaves
everything to her dialogue delivery style. The strength of the film is its
amazing dialogues by Chintan Gandhi and its biggest failure is at the door step
of Honey Tehran (casting director). A story that could have been told with a
lot of passion is told with tired theatrics and nothing more.
L. Ravichander.